13 March 2007

How do I create custom reports using XML?

You are an Amazon.co.uk Associate and you want to create custom reports? No problem. Just download the reports data in XML.

XML allows us to define custom tags that can be used to structure information in a consistent way so you can easily interpret it. This will not replace CSV downloads and online report previews.

Reports data contain additional details you can use to analyze your performance more closely. For example, both Earnings and Orders Reports include transaction dates. You could download an entire month of orders data, and graph the daily trends for products that you have been promoting heavily. This may help you determine how frequently to change featured promotions on your site.

XML is not just for software developers! Applications like Excel let you open XML documents in new worksheets and build reusable spreadsheet templates. To learn more, read the Microsoft tutorial about using this feature. But if you are a developer, or have similar expertise, you can use these data files to programmatically generate custom reports.